Heritage
by Flaw's Revenge
Summary: Dark Angel crossover   S2 Dark Angel, AU Supernatural  Not all Manticore children were test tube babies after all.
1. Heritage

So, this is DA/SPN crossover fic...which kind of came out of the blue one day, but I liked it enough to try and finish it up. The style is just a bit different for me, and the story has never been seen by a beta reader, but I hope some of you like it, too.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel, or Supernatural, or really much of anything at all.

* * *

"There's nothing in here about you, Max. If there was a file, it's been destroyed."

She tried not to show her disappointment. She would deal with that when Logan wasn't around.

"There is a file on Alec, though," Logan said quietly, distracted.

"What?" She practically draped herself over his shoulder to see the screen. "Logan, what does it say?"

"Maybe we should get Alec in here first."

"No, come on, he won't mind. What's in it?"

Logan opened the file and the two read a while in silence.

"Wow," Max said. "No shit."

* * *

"Hey Alec, I got something for you," she said coming up behind him at the bar.

"It's not going to hurt, is it?"

"No, come on." She grabbed him by the upper arm and dragged him outside.

"Ah, something good then. My place or yours?"

She didn't even have to look at him as she dug through her bag to see he was leering at her.

"Shut up." She thrust the envelope at him. "There. Logan and I found a database on Manticore genetic donors. Military database. There was a file marked X5-494. Guess we weren't all test tube babies after all."

Alec looked at the file in her hands like it might bite him, and didn't move to take it. "I don't need that, Maxie. I've got all the family I need right here."

"You don't have any family here," she said. "Just a bunch of freaks. This is real."

"Real like, hey mom and dad, I'm your genetically altered long-lost super-soldier son? No thanks, Max. I'll pass."

* * *

Max was sitting on Logan's couch, listening to him talk about boring stuff for Eyes Only. She was considering taking off until he said, "I found some stuff on Alec's family."

She perked right up, but tried to play it off by examining her nails. "What's that?"

"Well, they live in Kansas now, and their other son is considering college."

"Print it off, I'll take it to Alec."

* * *

"Here," she said, and thrust another envelope at him.

"What's this? I sort of hoped you were done giving me presents." He didn't take it, barely looked at it.

"It's a schedule for a prospective student visit at Stanford. Logan put out a general search and it came up."

"Am I going to college now, Max? Why are you always looking for ways to get rid of me?"

She sighed, short and huffy. "Just take it. I have to get back to work."

He shook his head and raised his hands, palms out, in protest.

"Fine," she said, and threw it at him before turning and stomping off. He wondered how such a little girl could make such a big noise while he rubbed at his forehead. It would be just perfect if she'd managed to bruise him there.

He looked down at the envelope, looking so innocent, so harmless, down by his feet. He sighed himself and crouched down to pick it up. While he was down there, he turned it over in his hands. Logan's handwriting was on the front. It read "Sam."

He tucked it into his jacket while standing and went to find out if Normal had any packages for him.

* * *

He put the two envelopes together on his kitchen counter and ignored them for a month. A month of Max barely speaking to him and Logan giving him curious looks. When it didn't stop, he figured that a family he didn't know was probably pretty close to a family that was pissed at him and opened them together.

A few pieces of paper came out the first one: a record of John and Mary Winchester, a marine and his wife struggling to have a baby when Manticore had stepped in, and a copy of a birth certificate that said "Dean Winchester." There was another document detailing the Winchester's move to Kansas and the birth of their next child: Sam. Manticore, it seemed, had left them alone after John left the military.

The second envelope held a copy of a visit schedule for Sam the next weekend at Stanford.

Alec shoved the papers back into one of the envelopes and went to the bar.

* * *

"You know, I've been trying for years to find my family, and suddenly, you're handed yours and you don't even care."

"Max—"

"No, Alec, I don't want to hear it."

His bag was already strapped to his bike outside. He left for California right away.

* * *

He didn't care much for Palo Alto. Despite the Pulse, it was bright and sunny there and people walked around with backpacks and drank fancy coffee and looked so _normal_.

No, he didn't care much for Palo Alto at all.

He spent the week there waiting for Friday to roll around. Some days he sat in on lectures and imagined what Sam would look like, and if they would get along. He liked the classes about technology and music and hated the ones about history and psychology and law. He even sat in on a discussion course about woman's rights and imagined Max rolling her eyes and walking out. He stayed instead and got a phone number.

On Friday, fancy cars rolled in from all over and rich little bright eyed kids poured out of them and stood together while students came and collected them. He found Sam's tour guide, a man named Brad that smirked at him like Alec would smirk at a woman and promised him a wild night while he lead him into an alley. Brad crumpled like a bag of bricks and Alec stole his name tag and the folder marked "Sam."

There was a lone figure on the quad when he got back, and he was tall, much taller than Alec, with longer hair and his brow creased in confusion. Alec looked down at his leather jacket and his motorcycle boots and shrugged. There wasn't anything he could do about it now.

* * *

"Hey, Sam, right?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm Alec." Your genetically altered long-lost super-soldier older brother. "Your tour guide."

Sam read his name tag and didn't say anything, and Alec mentally kicked himself for the slip but smiled and led him around campus anyway.

* * *

"And this is where they teach, um, something boring. You want to go grab a drink?"

Sam looked back at him, bemused, and said, "Don't you have a copy of my schedule?"

He had two actually, one from Max and one from Brad. "I just thought you'd like to do something fun instead."

"Well, I don't want to miss the meet and greet with the professors, or the dinner tonight. Besides, I have to meet my dad before that."

Dad. Alec's disappointment over the drink was gone.

"Oh yeah, okay. How come your dad didn't come on the tour?"

Sam laughed, and Alec felt himself smiling in response. The boy had an infectious laugh.

"My dad's not real big on the whole college thing. Don't get me wrong, he's supportive and all, I just don't think he likes the idea of me being so far away. He's probably having your drink right now."

They turned to walk back to the quad and Sam asked, "Do you always pretend to be a tour guide, or should I be worried for my safety?"

"Do you feel worried?"

"Maybe a little about what happened to Brad, but otherwise, not really, no."

"Then I think you're good. This was my first time pretending to be a tour guide though. I'll need you to fill out my questionnaire when we get back."

* * *

"This is my dad, John."

The older man looked at him suspiciously but held out his hand to shake anyway.

"Pleased to meet you, sir." Alec didn't know where the 'sir' came from. He hadn't addressed anyone like that since Manticore, though Max often almost caused him to slip.

"So, Brad, how do you like it here?"

Sam snickered but didn't bother correcting him. Alec said, "I like it just fine. But I've heard that the University of Kansas is nice, too."

Sam laughed again and finally came between them. "Dad, this is Alec. He's not a student here, just a friend. Brad's um..."

"He couldn't make it so he had me cover for him. No big deal."

* * *

Alec went with Sam and John to the dinner because Sam invited him and because he wasn't one to pass up anything free, and especially not food.

He thought he was pretty suave when he mentioned that he had family out in Kansas, but hadn't wanted to make the long trip east by himself. Sam eagerly said that he could travel with them, and Alec only had to think for a few seconds about Max before he agreed.

* * *

They traveled slow back to Kansas, and sometimes Sam and him stayed in small towns and just hung out while John disappeared "to see old friends." Once Sam went with him came back limping with a cut on his forehead and a glowering John right behind him and once John left in the middle of the night and Sam met his eyes in the dark and just shrugged. Alec thought it was kind of strange and wondered if maybe John hadn't completely left the military behind after all, but he never said anything and neither did John or Sam.

* * *

After two weeks of strange absences, Alec tracked John to the edge of a small town in Colorado where an old woman flickered in and out of the attic window of a deserted house and watched him light a fire. He let curiosity get the better of him and got too close to the flames before he looked up and met John's eyes over them. He blurred all the way to the hotel room and the next morning Sam went out for coffee and John pushed Alec down to sit on the bed and started pacing the room.

"Look, I know that you think Sam and I want you here, but you're wrong. Sam doesn't know what he's doing, so I'm telling you straight: I want you gone. You're not welcome here and soon Sam's going to see that you're a liability he doesn't want around. So as soon as you're able, I want you to get lost. Go back to wherever you came from and stop messing with my family."

Alec sat on the bed and stared straight ahead while John paced and ranted. He thought he'd rather take the lasers to the eyes instead of this any day.

* * *

After Sam had come back to the hotel with drinks and pizza and the three had eaten in silence, Sam threw his hands up in frustration, grabbed Alec by the other arm and dragged him off to the bar "so he'd finally stop nagging about that drink" and really to get John and Alec away from each other for awhile.

John sat with the remains of the congealing pizza and tried not to glower too much. He had thought that dinner was a good opportunity for Alec to announce his plans to turn back west. He turned on the TV and tried to distract himself, and then Alec's cell phone started ringing from his back pack. The first time it rang he grumbled and let it be. The second time he got up and stood over it, hoping to intimidate it into silence. The third time it started ringing he grabbed the pack and ripped open the zipper and started digging around for it. The phone fell out the same time as a gun and a pile of papers. He held the phone as it rang the forth time and idly wondered about the persistence of Alec's acquaintances as he studied the piece. It wasn't unheard of after the Pulse to protect oneself, and especially with his work on the side as a hunter he shouldn't have been all that surprised, but it was the fact that this man was with his son and carrying a gun when most days he couldn't get Sam to protect himself that made John the angriest. He was reaching for the piece when his eye caught on the first paper.

By the time he was done reading and couldn't deny the words anymore, he folded in on himself next to the bed and started shaking, only to have the phone go off a fifth time.

"What?" he said gruffly.

"Alec?" It was a woman. "Alec, stay out of Seattle for a while, if you can. I don't know what you've seen on the news, but Logan and Josh and I, we're all safe. We're in Terminal City."

He didn't say anything, just kept breathing, until she said, "Who is this and what have you done with Alec?"

He ended the call and turned it off. He turned it over in his hands as he considered the transgenics and how he had almost went to Seattle to hunt, and now here was Alec, no, _Dean_, and he was ferociously glad he hadn't made that trip west to hunt his own son.

By the time Alec and Sam got back, it was almost sunrise. John had picked up and put everything back the way it was, except he left the phone off.

* * *

In the morning, when Alec went out for a jog, Sam turned to John and said, "He was going to take off, last night. I caught him sneaking out the back. Did he follow you the night before? Because he got back to the hotel room spooked and now he's acting weird."

John nodded stiffly and couldn't meet Sam's eyes. "Yeah," he said, "he followed me out to the Pearson's ranch and saw me burn the old lady's bones. That must be what's got him on edge."

* * *

Sam said, "My dad and I, sometimes we hunt things."

Alec nodded. "Yeah, I saw that. Was that woman…? Was she dead?"

Sam said, "Not everything is as it seems."

Alec nodded again. "I get that, man. I get that like you wouldn't believe."

Sam said, "Keep traveling with us."

Alec shrugged and kept nodding.

* * *

When the got to Lawrence, Alec was still with them, despite John's warning.

John went into the house first, seeking out his wife and hugging her before she could even manage to say "hello." He gripped her hard and turned his head so he was whispering directly into her ear.

"Mary, just listen to me: there's a man here, he's been traveling with us since Stanford. Sam's going to introduce him as Alec, but it's Dean, Mary. It's Dean, and you have to pretend that you don't know, but I couldn't let you see him without knowing."

He drew back from her and she looked up. "I don't understand."

He placed a hand between them, directly over her belly, over the place where her stomach had been round and he had touched her before Sam, before _Dean_.

She looked down at his hand, and then took it in one of hers and squeezed it hard. "What did you do, John Winchester?"

* * *

They sat down to dinner the night the men had arrived home and the conversation was strained, at best. Sam talked a little about Stanford and John talked about Palo Alto and Alec tried to smile and nod and sure as hell not say anything about Seattle or Manticore, and then Mary beat him to it anyway.

"Oh John, have you seen the news about Seattle? A group of those genetically altered people have barricaded themselves into a part of the city. Innocent people are getting hurt."

Alec stood up from the dinner table and carried his plate to the kitchen. He scraped his food into the trash and wondered to whom his mother was referring when she said 'innocent.' The way he saw it, no one was innocent anymore.

* * *

The next day, Sam and Alec were playing video games when Sam said, "I think maybe I should be a lawyer."

Alec grunted and tried not to be frustrated that his avatar couldn't blur.

"I mean, those poor people up in Seattle, I think I could help them."

Alec paused the game. He looked at Sam, who kept looking at the screen. "Which people?"

Sam unpaused the game and shot Alec's avatar. He stared at it in shock.

"The ones my mom was talking about; the ones trapped in that abandoned part of the city. What do they call it?"

"Terminal City."

"Yeah, I mean, I think they could use a few good lawyers."

* * *

He stayed for a week and wondered why John never approached him again with threats about his family's safety. And after a week of pretending to be normal he decided that maybe the situation in Seattle was dire enough that Max would tolerate his presence.

"Are you leaving?"

He stood in the guest bedroom and shoved the last of his things back into his backpack. He didn't turn to look at the woman that Manticore had used to bring him into the world.

"Yeah, there's some stuff I gotta take care of. So, uh…" he hefted his pack, "Thanks for letting me stay a while." He turned around and mustered a smile. She didn't return it.

"Sure. You know, you don't have to go. Not so soon at least. Stay for dinner. You could leave in the morning."

* * *

John opened the door to the garage and gestured for Alec to follow. There were tools on the walls and boxes in the rafters and junk all around the periphery and a car-shaped lump in the middle covered by a dusty gray tarp.

"My dad gave me this car," he said, and started rolling back the tarp. "It was the only thing I really remember him giving me. He said, 'don't wreck it' and threw me the keys, and he kept it running for me when I joined the service and when he died I came home for the funeral and sat in it and cried like a baby."

Alec stayed in the doorway and watched as John stroked a hand lovingly across the hood.

"I was going to give it to Sam, but he was never much interested in cars; more interested in classes and politics." John looked up at Alec expectantly, and Alec just shrugged.

"It's a nice car," he said, and hoped that was what John wanted; he couldn't remember Manticore ever educating him on the finer points of garage talk.

John said, "Look, I'm not real good with this kind of thing, but, you know, it's yours now," and threw the keys to Alec.

He caught them on reflex and looked at them curiously. "Why are you giving me the car?"

John said, "I know you're Dean. You're my son."

Alec said, "I'm leaving in the morning," and threw back the keys.

* * *

After dinner, Sam and Alec went down to a local bar and played pool for a while. Alec was impressed that Sam gave him a run for his money. He wondered if maybe the whole transgenic thing ran in the family. Or maybe it was just the reason they chose the Winchesters in the first place.

"My parents don't want you to go," Sam said at some point in the middle of a discussion on college sports.

"Yeah, who'd have thought?" Alec took a shot at the eight ball, an easy bank into the side pocket and missed. He cursed under his breath.

"Why do you think that is?" Sam asked as he took his own shots and set himself up to beat Alec. Again.

"Because I'm so adorable?"

Sam sunk the eight ball. "Nah, I don't think that's it."

* * *

Alec was sitting on his bike the next morning before the sun had even come up. He was about to start it up when a hand on his arm startled him. Mary Winchester, standing outside with only a light jacket on over her nightgown.

"I saw you from the window," she said, and gestured behind her.

He looked behind her, saw John standing in the window now.

"He told you, huh?"

"When you first arrived."

"He told you what I am?"

She frowned a bit, then resolved herself. "My son."

"Not who I am. What I am."

She sighed and tightened her fingers around his wrist. "He told me last night. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't change who you are."

Alec looked down at her small hand.

"It changes everything. I have to leave."

They stared at each other for a while, and she let him go when she started to tear up.

As he was pulling away, he heard her whisper, "Come back to me."

He would never have heard her over his bide if he weren't a transgenic.

* * *

Max said, "What the hell are you doing back here?" and smacked him in the back of the head.

Josh gave him a hug and said, "Welcome back, Medium Fella."

Alec said, "Thanks, Josh," and "Can't a guy come home once in a while?"

"What, didn't they handle it well?"

Alec shrugged started looking around the command center in Terminal City. "Pretty sweet set-up you guys have here."

"You didn't tell them." She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. "Come on, Alec, this was a big opportunity! You have to go back."

He pried her hand off. "I didn't have to tell them. They knew."

Her eyes got real wide. "They knew you were X5? They didn't take it well, huh?"

"No, they took it fine. They took everything fine. But come on, Max, you didn't actually think that one of us could just go and pretend to be Joe Normal from Kansas, did you? I'm not like them. My place is here."

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

Josh stood looking between the two of them. "Maybe Medium Fella should go back to Kansas," he said.

"Yeah," Max said, with a sharp nod of her head for emphasis. "Maybe Medium Fella should."

She had that tone that always scared him a little.

He reached out and slapped Josh on the back. "Show me Terminal City, okay, big guy?"

They left Max glaring after them. "We're not finished with this, Alec!" she yelled, Alec kept walking like he didn't even hear her.

* * *

Two days after Alec arrived back in Seattle, Logan said in a video phone call that there was a man with him who wanted to see Alec.

Alec ignored the message for two more days until Logan said that John Winchester didn't exactly make for pleasant company.

He arranged with Max to make a trip out of Terminal City, and tried to ignore the smug look on her face.

* * *

Alec closed the door between the living room and the dining room, even though he knew Max would still be able to hear, and turned to John.

"You're not that easy to get a hold of," John said.

"Yeah, well, a police barricade will do that."

"My wife…" John started. "Your mother. She wants you to come home."

"She's not my mother, and Terminal City is my home."

"She is your mother. I was there when she gave birth to you." He sighed, frustrated. "Look, this is hard for me."

Alec folded his arms and leaned against the wall.

"We were having trouble getting pregnant. Manticore said they could help. Apparently, they did a bit more than encourage natural development."

"Apparently."

"But it doesn't matter. You're still our son."

"You don't even know that. I may not be genetically related to you at all."

"I read the files. The ones you had with you when you came home and some more that Logan showed me. You're our son. Manticore just made some alterations. I never would have let them do that had I known."

"What about Ben?"

John frowned.

"My clone. Mary may not have given birth to him, but would you count him as your son, too?"

John nodded, hesitantly at first, then said, "Where is he? I'd like to meet him."

Alec shrugged and opened the doors, caught Max when she almost fell on him, righted her and then walked away.

She stared at John. "Logan is making dinner. Want to join us?"

* * *

Logan was cleaning up when she said, "Ben is dead." She wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Oh," John said. "How did he die?"

"I'm not telling you that to let you off the hook."

John nodded. "I know. He wanted to see how I'd react."

"He wanted to see if you'd leave."

"I'm still here."

"I know." She twirled her wine glass. "Manticore wasn't an easy place to grow up, John. Ben didn't want to go back."

"Go back?"

"A group of us escaped when we were young. Me, and Ben included. Alec grew up there. He's only been out for about a year. They almost recaptured Ben, and I… He didn't want to go back." She finally met his eyes.

"Okay," he said.

* * *

Alec came back well after dinner had been cleaned up. Max found him in the kitchen picking through the leftovers.

"He seems like a decent guy," Max said, reaching around him to grab a beer. "A little gruff, but decent."

"Yeah." Alec shrugged and pulled out a dish. Max handed him a fork.

"And?"

"His wife's nice, too. And I like their son. Good kid."

"So what's the problem? The family's nice. They know you're Manticore and are okay with it. It sounds perfect."

"I dunno, Max. Maybe it's just me."

She eyed him for awhile as he picked through his food.

"Then get over it already," she said finally, and wandered off with her beer.

* * *

In the morning, John found Alec leaning against the car. His bag had already been thrown into the back seat.

He said, "So what was up with that woman in Colorado anyway?"


	2. DysUtopia

AN (new): I'm moving all of the Heritage series to one story. This may be a repeat for many of you.

AN (original): A snippet from sometime in "Heritage" when Alec (who-is-Dean) was staying in Lawrence with the Winchesters. It probably helps quite a bit to have read that first. Also, the timeline has gone completely to crap, and I make no apologies for that. Essentially, I'm considering everything fair game. References to "Dead in the Water." 

Disclaimer: None of it is mine. As always, unbetaed. Apologies for any and all mistakes.

* * *

In Sam's room there were pictures on the walls, and a shiny new diploma. There were shelves lined with trophies and trinkets and books. A lot of books.

Alec stood at the shelves and read the spines. He ran his finger down the bindings of a few stacked one on the other and tried to picture Sam reading _Fahrenheit 451_ and _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ and _Brave New World_. He tried to imagine himself reading them.

It suited Sam better.

Sam's room was a strange place for him. In there, it was like there was no Pulse, no Manticore or Terminal City, and never had been. In Sam's room, there were all the signs of a little boy growing up well loved and taken care of, and the salt on the window was just another indication of that.

Alec ran his finger along the window sill and caught a few granules on his finger tips.

He tried to picture his life as Dean. He tried to imagine sleeping in a room like this, with his own books and trinkets. He couldn't imagine books like Sam's, but maybe comic books, and magazines.

He looked at the pictures on the walls, and tried to design his own. Would he have had posters of hot women, or of cars and motorcycles? He kind of liked the picture of Sam, standing with John and Mary at a lake somewhere. He mentally inserted himself into that frame, then pulled it off the wall and turned it over, hand poised and ready to steal the picture and shove it into his jacket.

"Sam?" It was Mary, calling from downstairs. "Sam, are you going out with your friends tonight? Or will you be home for dinner?"

Sam was in the shower. Alec went to the top of the stairs and looked down at her. She smiled when she saw him.

"Are you guys going out?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I think so."

"Okay, well, should I plan on you for dinner?"

Alec shrugged. "I'll ask Sam when he gets out."

"Sure," she was still smiling, but it was a sad smile. He didn't understand it. Eventually, she patted the railing a little and wandered off. He thought maybe she had wanted to say something else.

He took the frame, still with its picture inside, back to Sam's room and sat on the bed.

He ran his fingers lightly over Mary's face and imagined calling her "mom". He imagined her calling for him, but in his head it always came out _Dean_.

Sam came in a few minutes later, dressed in clean jeans and a t-shirt and still dripping water from his hair.

"Hey man," he said, "what'd my mom want?"

Alec threw the frame behind him on the bed. "Just to know if we were eating dinner here," he said.

"Well, yeah," Sam said. "Unless you don't want to?"

"It's fine with me," he said, and stood up to leave the room.

He was in the doorway, when Sam said, "Hey," and he turned around to find the frame in Sam's hands now.

"Yeah?"

"This was a great trip, up to Lake Manitoc. Dad had business there so we made a vacation out of it. I remember that he didn't want to go in the lake and mom teased him about it mercilessly. My sides hurt so bad from laughing at them."

Alec nodded, not really sure what to say to a story he hadn't asked for.

Sam opened the back of the frame and pulled out the photograph. He held it out to Alec, who suddenly thought of Max, trying to do something for him that he still wasn't sure he wanted, but Sam didn't even know what he was offering, besides a picture that had caught Alec's attention.

"Hey man," he said, "it's your family," and held his hands up, palms out, deflecting.

"Yeah," Sam said, "I know," and grabbed Alec's hand and put the picture in it. "Let's go eat."

Alec stood there dumbfounded for a minute before he tucked it carefully inside his jacket without looking at it. There'd be plenty of time for that later. He followed Sam downstairs.


	3. Indentity Crisis

AN: Again, this was moved from it's own story listing to be a chapter here. Probably still a repeat for some of you. Alec returns to Kansas with John.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Really. Nothing at all.

* * *

They ran into a transhuman in Colorado, one of the desert units, and John tried to light it on fire. Alec stopped the flare gun and then doubled up in laughter.

"Seriously? This is what you do? Seriously?"

"I thought it was a Wendigo."

"Yeah," Alec said, "whatever that means."

Alec gave the transhuman some money and told him to avoid Seattle and crazy men with flare guns.

Later that night John shot a real Wendigo in a mine shaft and Alec didn't find it nearly as funny anymore.

* * *

They wound their way back to Kansas, much like Alec's first trip there. But this time, John dragged him along on all his hunts, and Alec thought he preferred sitting around and shooting the shit with Sam. But John was okay. A little gruff, and he didn't always seem to appreciate Alec's less gentile quirks. 

Like the time he noticed that Alec was less concerned with the poltergeist and more concerned with casing the joint for when the family finally left to stay with friends until it was over. He had the DVD player in his arms when the chandelier hit the dining room table. John didn't have to tell him to drop it and get his ass in gear after that, but he did anyway.

Or the time they found a stash of cocaine under the stairs at one of their cases and Alec scooped it up to sell later. John took his backpack and threw it into the burning open grave with the bones below. Alec stared at him until John told him to knock it off, and maybe he meant the staring, but Alec made sure to keep his hands off from then on.

At least when John was around.

He was still running a few scams and making a little cash on the side when John finally took him by the shoulders and steered him into a chair in their latest hotel room (lace doilies everywhere, a picture of a posed horse on the wall, and what appeared to be handmade quilts).

"Look," he said, "I know that things have been difficult for you, but from now on, we're doing things my way. No more thefts."

Alec nodded seriously. "Okay, so what name should I use on this credit card application?"

* * *

Back in Kansas, John became an upstanding citizen again. He'd been on vacation, he told them at the shop, and run into his long lost son, who needed a job. 

The man who handed Alec the wrench said, "Good to have you, Dean," and showed him how to replace an alternator.

They hung around the shop until it closed and Mike left them to lock up.

John said, "Out there, we use fake names to protect ourselves. Not everyone appreciates what we do. But here we're Winchesters."

Alec wondered where there was time in between fake names and Dean Winchester to be Alec.

* * *

Mary gave him a hug when they got home and Sam put down his book to welcome him back, even if he did look a bit confused about it. 

"What're you doing back, man?" he asked, when John and Mary had gone to get the spare room ready.

"Oh," he said, "I just couldn't stay away. Your mom's a great cook."

Sam stared at him intently.

"Your dad offered me a job. At the shop. And you know, the other thing, too."

Sam stared more intently.

"I guess I'm your brother?"

Sam gave him a hug that lifted him off his feet.

* * *

In the spare bedroom, he took the picture of John and Mary and Sam out of his pocket and hung it on the wall with a tack. 

A few days later, Sam had put it back in the frame and hung it properly.

It felt a little bit less like a spare bedroom after that.

* * *

A week after he'd arrived for the second time in Lawrence, John took him and Sam out to a field where he'd set up targets and told them to practice. 

They practiced shooting guns and arrows and throwing knives until Sam finally threw his hands up in disgust.

"I don't get it, I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. How come you're so much better at it than I am?"

"Superior vision and hand-eye coordination. Plus, I can speak over ten languages and play piano at a concert level."

"What?"

"I'm a quick learner."

"No seriously. What?"

"I'm X5, Sam."

"Oh. Right."

"Yeah."

John made them run afterwards. Alec paced Sam the entire time, and they talked about pool and video games and not the fact that Alec was a genetically engineered super soldier. He thought they were both probably grateful.

* * *

Mary tried to cook something different every day. She didn't say it, but she was trying to figure out what Alec did and didn't like. But he seemed to like everything. 

One night after dinner she said, "What's your favorite, Dean? What can I make for you tomorrow?"

He thought about if for a while, then said, "Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese."

She made a terrific casserole and he thanked her for it, but afterwards he thought about Max and Joshua and wondered what they were doing while he was playing house.

When he got Max on the phone she said, "What, Alec?" and her exasperation made him feel like himself again.

* * *

Sam started packing for college weeks before he would be leaving. Alec sat on his bed, leaned against the headboard and bounced a ball off the ceiling. 

"Dude," Sam said at some point (574 bounces), "knock it off."

"What's so great about Stanford, Sammy?"

"Well for one thing, _Dean_, it's a good school," he said, and made a grab for the ball. "They haven't let the Pulse affect the quality of their academics."

He missed it and Alec held it in his hand for a while, considering. "That and the free ride."

"Well, yeah. There is that." Sam looked like he wanted to say something else. Alec bounced the ball off of his forehead.

"Don't hurt yourself with all those deep thoughts."

Sam sighed and Alec resumed bouncing the ball.

* * *

On the news they started warning people to check for barcodes on the back on the neck. Alec put his hand back to rub against his. It was a good thing he'd always looked good in turtleneck sweaters. 

Logan told him on the phone that he could remove it, at least for awhile, and he and Sam snuck into a clinic one night to take care of it.

While he was lying face down and doing his best to hold still, Sam said, "What was it like, growing up at Manticore?"

"I think it was a lot like summer camp," he said. "We slept in bunk beds, had a lot of organized activities, and tried not to piss off the counselors."

After Sam was done he sat up and looked at his little brother and finally started to appreciate what Max had been trying to tell him about family. He felt insanely grateful that Sam had grown up in Kansas, under John and Mary's roof.

Sam said, "I never went to summer camp."

Alec said, "Good."

* * *

During the day, Alec tinkered with cars at the garage and got more used to being called Dean. When he came home he tinkered a little with the car in their garage and sometimes John helped him and Mary brought them water or beers and Sam sat in the passenger's seat and read his books and Alec got more used to the idea of being Dean. 


	4. Dinner and a Show

AN: Lydecker comes to visit Alec and the Winchesters in Kansas. Moved here from my livejournal.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

In August, a week before Sam left for Stanford and while Alec was still trying to figure out how to tell Mary she could stop thinking up new things to feed him (because the meat and potato noodle thing had just been weird), the doorbell rang.

When he got downstairs, John Winchester and Donald Lydecker were sitting at the kitchen table, having a beer.

He was standing at attention before he even realized it.

"Hi," Lydecker said, "You must be Dean."

* * *

"Donald and I were in the same unit," John said. "The last time I saw him he'd just gotten a huge promotion."

Donald gave a rueful grin. "It could have been you, John."

John reached over and grabbed Mary's hand. "I don't know about that. I had other priorities in mind."

Lydecker laughed and looked over to Alec. "So what do you do, Dean?"

"I work on cars," he said. "Just like my old man."

"Interesting," he said. "No stint in the military first though, huh?"

Alec excused himself to help Sam pack.

* * *

Sam was fretting about how many of his books to bring. "After all, how much time will I have to read them? They'll be giving me plenty new things to read."

"What about as reference books?"

Sam nodded. "You're right. I need them. I definitely need them," and he reached to grab the contents of entire shelf.

"Wait a minute! Who's going to help you carry all of that? Maybe you should just pick one or two."

Sam sighed and let go of the books. "Who's downstairs with mom and dad?"

"Some guy dad knew in the military."

Sam studied him. "Why is it bugging you?"

"Who said it's bugging me?"

"I can tell."

Alec stared back at Sam for a while, then moved past him towards the bookshelf. "Here, let me help you with those."

* * *

John and Alec didn't talk about it. They talked about cars and sports and Sam and sometimes the Pulse. But they didn't talk about Terminal City or transgenics. They talked about hunting and Mary and what's for dinner. But they didn't talk about Alec. They talked about Dean.

Sometimes Sam asked him things. He tried to be honest, but discrete. He wanted Sam to be his little brother, but he hadn't had a little brother before, only fellow soldiers. He tried to think of Sam like Joshua. If Joshua hadn't known about Psy-ops, Alec wouldn't have said anything about Psy-ops. So he didn't tell Sam about Psy-ops. He told Sam about his unit, before they were moved to individual cells. He told Sam about going out on assignment, about exotic locals and beautiful women, but not that they were assignments.

Mary and Alec didn't really talk at all. Sometimes he would watch her when she didn't know it, and imagine her taking him to school on the first day and giving him a big hug, or he would imagine asking her to make cookies for a bake sale or to take him shopping for new shoes. Sam said moms did all those things. All he really saw Mary do was cook.

* * *

John took Donald outside to show him the car he had tried to give to Dean. He said, "This is my son's car, now. Isn't she a beauty?"

Don gave the car its due, and then they leaned together against the trunk and looked out at the street. It was a quiet day in Lawrence.

"Why are you here, Lydecker?" he asked.

"Can't an old friend say hi?"

"Sure. How come that old friend doesn't want to know how I got my son back?"

Lydecker said nothing.

"Kind of hard to think you didn't have a part to play in this, Don."

"Think what you want, John, but this is a good will mission, nothing more."

They didn't say anything more about it.

* * *

Sam packed three boxes of books, and Alec unpacked two of them while Sam went downstairs to look for more on the bookshelves in the living room.

Back upstairs, Sam set an armful of books on the bed and studied Alec's work.

"I think you're trying to tell me something," he said.

"My back hurts already. No more boxes."

"Your back doesn't hurt."

"You don't need all those books."

Sam shook his head slowly.

Alec fidgeted in his spot on the floor.

"He's still here," Sam said.

"What? Who?"

"Dad's friend. They went outside to talk shop, but he hasn't left yet." Sam started packing books into newly emptied boxes. "Maybe you should go talk to him."

"Why would I do that?"

Sam shrugged while he taped one of the boxes shut this time. "I think you need to. I think you've been nervous and twitchy since he got here. Who is he?"

"A camp counselor," he said.

Sam's eyes got wide and he put the tape down carefully.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Alec didn't know.

* * *

Lydecker didn't stay for dinner, even though Mary asked him to. They stood just inside the front door and said their good byes. When he shook Alec's hand, he gripped it hard until Alec stopped avoiding eye contact.

"It was good to meet you, son," he said.

* * *

John drew Alec aside after they had seen Lydecker off. "After he told me about the promotion, he also told me about a program that could help Mary and I conceive."

Alec only stared at him.

"Dean, have you met this man before?"

Alec didn't feel like it was a lie when he said no. _Dean_ had never met Donald Lydecker before that day. They didn't talk about Alec.

* * *

In the kitchen, he leaned against the counter and watched Mary chop up an onion. She was sniffling a little and when she told him the menu for that night he could only nod in agreement. Anything she wanted to make him would be perfect.

* * *

After dinner, Alec said he wanted to run down to the shop quick, to place an order for some parts he had forgotten to do the day before.

Only a block away from the house, he stopped his blur next to the driver's side window of an old Buick and waited for the window to be rolled down.

"If I could find you, don't you think they will, too?"

Alec stared down the road and pictured the car gone.

"Stop calling Terminal City. You're only making it easier for them."

"No."

"If you want to protect your family, you will. And keep the barcode covered. I saw it the second you turned around."

"They're not going to come after me," he said.

"Of course they are," Lydecker said. "You're X5."

* * *

Back home, he found Mary sitting in the living room, a book on her lap but unopened.

She looked up at him in the doorway, and he gave her a small smile.

"You don't have to make me anything special," he said. "I mean, I appreciate it, but I don't need it."

She gave him a small smile in return. "I want to," she said. "I want to do things for you."

He nodded like he understood, but he really didn't. "Okay," he said.

* * *

That night he dressed in all in black and painted his face and climbed onto the roof. He sat in the shadows by the chimney and kept watch until dawn. 


	5. Sunday Brunch

AN: Takes place directly after "Dinner and a Show". Apparently needs a tissue warning. Sorry about that. :-)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

"They took you away from me."

Mary was standing in the doorway, watching him sleep and whispering to herself.

"They took you away from me, and now you're back but I don't know you."

He shuffled around in his sleep. It was well into mid-morning and he wasn't up. She hadn't ever seen him sleeping before and now here he was, deeply asleep.

"Who are you?"

* * *

Alec woke up and wasn't surprised to see the sun had beaten him. He'd spent most of the night camped out on the roof, just making sure. It didn't mean he put any stock in Lydecker's words. It just meant he was nothing if not prudent.

He scrubbed his face again in the bathroom and tried not to think of what Max would say, of how dangerous he was to the people he loved. She had sent him here, after all.

Everything would be fine.

* * *

Downstairs, Mary started making Sunday brunch and planning a shopping list in her head. Ever since he'd gotten here the second time she'd been cooking and cleaning nonstop. She couldn't think of anything else to do with herself that didn't involve grabbing her son, both of her sons, and holding on to them so tightly they'd never leave again. Instead, she cooked, and tried not to think about Sam leaving for college and Dean…no, Alec…leaving for, well, anywhere. That place in Seattle maybe, or back to wherever he'd grown up. She couldn't even work up the nerve to ask him about it. All she knew was what she saw on the news and what she heard from John, which was basically just to ignore the news.

She didn't know him. She didn't know her son.

* * *

Sam stumbled downstairs with all the grace of heard of elephants, which made Mary roll her eyes in fond exasperation. She knew he could be remarkably soft-footed. John was his father, after all.

"Hey honey," she said. "Want some eggs?"

"Maybe later, mom, I've got to go out for a run. Dad's rules, you know."

He grumbled a bit under his breath, but he still laced up his shoes and headed out. His resistance to his father's military strictness had toned way down with Dean's…Alec's…arrival back home and his acceptance to Stanford. She knew that getting away was going to be good for him. She just hoped that he stayed safe, what with the mess the Pulse had created.

She went back to slicing fruit and vegetables and when she looked up next, Alec was standing there, looking back at her. She hadn't heard him come downstairs at all.

"Hi," she said. _Hi honey, want some eggs?_ "Can I make you something?"

Last night he'd told her not to go to the trouble.

Last night she'd told him she wanted to. And she did, but she also wanted to talk to him, and for him to talk to her. But all they had was food. And she'd done that, she knew it. She remembered her feelings about the transgenics before she'd known he was one, too, and now with the proof in front of her, the proof that came from her own body, she didn't know how to cope with that.

John was avoiding it. Sam was completely nonplussed, and she wasn't coping. She wondered what was going on in Alec's head.

"Um, sure. Where's Sam?" He slipped into a chair at the table and looked calmly back at her.

She studied him. "French toast?" He looked tired still, and there was a black smudge on his ear.

"Okay."

She nodded and got to work.

* * *

It was bread soaked in egg and syrup and it was heavenly. Alec ate carefully instead of devouring it like he would have liked. He had learned manners at Manticore. He'd watched a video and then had an "instructor" critique his every move and dole out appropriate punishment for his shortcomings. So he knew what to do. He knew exactly how to behave.

She sat down with him and nursed a cup of coffee. She watched him over the top of her cup and he did his best not to watch her back.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked. "You slept late."

"I was tired," he said. He put his fork down next to his plate.

"Oh," she said. "Were you up late with Sam?"

"No," he said.

"Oh," she said. "Okay."

He picked his fork back up and resumed eating. This time he studied his plate and did not look up at all. He felt that he was making it worse, whatever _it_ was. Max would have something to say about this, too. She always knew what to say, what to do.

"Can I ask you a question?" Her voice was quiet, hesitant. He felt himself tense up gripped the fork so hard he thought he felt it bend.

"Did you…" She let her breath out in a rush and tried again. "Did you have a mother there? Did someone take care of you?"

They sat in silence for a while. He couldn't make his lips form words. He didn't know what to tell her.

He'd told Sam about camp and mercifully that had been that. John hadn't wanted to know anything at all. Or at least, they'd avoided it so far. But this woman was his mother. They hadn't provided instructors for this, and it shouldn't even be him, sitting here. It should be Max. She was the one who wanted a mother.

"Did they tell you about me?" she asked.

"No," he said, and got up and walked out of the room.

Outside, Alec found Sam a few blocks over, jogging lightly and breathing easily. He tagged him on the back and they sprinted until Sam doubled over gasping for air.

* * *

John found Mary inside, gripping the kitchen counter with both hands and staring at the window like she could break it with the force of her gaze.

"Hey," he said. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Alec," she said.

"You mean Dean."

"No. I mean Alec."

* * *

Alec and Sam made their way back to the yard where Sam collapsed in the grass and Alec crouched near him.

"Man," he said, "whatever they gave you, it's no fair."

"No fair?" Alec asked.

"Yeah, if I could run like that and never have to train, dad wouldn't be on my case."

"I had to train," he said.

"Yeah, sure, but, you know, the genetics?" Sam waved a hand around. "Pretty kick-ass."

"Yeah," he said, "kick-ass." He wanted to say Psy-ops and lasers and tryptophan and _family_, but he didn't.

John found them there.

"Dean," he said. "We need to talk."

* * *

Sam went inside for brunch, and Alec followed John into the garage. He grazed his hand over the car and waited.

"You're upsetting your mother," John said.

"Okay," Alec said. "What do I do?"

"Go talk to her. Make it right."

"Make what right?"

"Have you been telling her not to call you Dean?"

"I didn't tell her anything."

"Your name is Dean."

Alec was quiet for a while. He ran his hand over the car again. "My name is Alec."

"Your mother and I named you Dean."

His jaw clenched and he took his hand off the car. _Your designation is X5-494._ "Okay."

* * *

Mary cleaned up the kitchen after hurricane Sam and was just wondered where Alec and John had gotten off to when Alec appeared in the doorway for the second time that day. Sam said they'd been running together, but she couldn't tell by looking at him.

Rationally, she thought of reasons for that, but she closed her eyes and turned her head away instead of facing them.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't have a mother, but you can call me Dean if you want to."

When she finally opened her eyes, he was gone.


	6. Birthright

AN: So, this is case-fic-ish, and the story moves along. Ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (I'm working on the next bit). Thanks to Lomer on livejournal for the beta. Of course, I messed with it a bit after that, and all mistakes are solely my fault.

Disclaimer: It's not mine, but I guess the mess I made putting the universes together is, so...sorry about that. ;-)

* * *

They went on a hunt in Nebraska. A teenage couple had gone missing now strange things were happening in their neighborhood. Pets were turning up dead, lights were flickering, and someone had become hysterical enough to start asking for professionals in their line of work. They got the job through Pastor Jim, since they were the closest to it, and Alec had it on the tip of his tongue to ask who Pastor Jim was but he let it go. Probably a weird code name or something.

Lights flickering in a post-Pulse world weren't that strange, and the power lines around Ravenna were a patch job at best. The dead pets were a couple of fish and a few unfortunate cats who had a tendency to get out at night. Any predator could have left it in the state it was found. But they went anyway and checked it out, talked to all the right people.

Well, John did the talking. Sam sat in the truck with Alec and they discussed the shifting socio-economic system, or at least Sam did. Alec watched the people on the streets. They walked around like they had all the time in the world, none of the rushing he'd become accustomed to in Seattle, no _bip bip bip_, no strange glint in their eyes like the world was coming to an end. No, here in the heartland, in Ravenna and in Lawrence, there was little indication that some places were experiencing such upheaval. It had been ten years since the EMP. They had moved on here, learned to adapt, learned to put life back the way they wanted it. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and fingered the buttons that would connect him to Terminal City.

_Stop calling Terminal City. You're making it easier for them._

He put the phone away.

"So are you going to study sociology or something?" he asked.

"I don't know." Sam was looking down at the course catalog they'd given him on his visit. "There's a lot of things I'd like to learn."

"Besides Latin and demon lore and all that?"

"Well, the Latin will be very helpful for some things, like biology, or law. Latin is still used in many fields for naming and official terminology."

"Right. Dead languages just never die." Alec drummed his fingers against his leg and stared out the windshield as a pretty girl came into view.

"That's really a misnomer anyway. Many modern languages are derived from Latin. What would you study?"

"Anatomy. Hey, look at that chick. Pretty cute, huh?"

Sam finally lifted his head and followed Alec's gaze out the window, where a leggy blond had stopped to window shop.

"Real subtle, Alec."

"I'm going to go see if I can get her number. And maybe a hot dog and a coke or something. You want anything?"

"I'll take an orange juice."

Alec paused with his hand on the door handle. "You want me to put that in a sippy cup?"

* * *

John made it back to the truck before Alec did, although Sam had seen him fail with the leggy blond.

"Where's your brother?" he said as he reached to turn the keys in the ignition.

"He went on a snack run. What did the clerk say?"

"That his cat was dead and there was no way anything natural had done it."

"Can we check it out?"

"He already burned the thing."

Sam nodded. "So really there's no case here."

John shot him a stern look. "Sam."

"Seriously dad. There are a couple teenagers missing. That's all. Caitlin Andrews and Scott Mullins probably ran off together. The cops should handle this."

"The other cats belonged to an old woman over on the north side. We'll go interview her next."

Sam frowned at John's outright dismissal of his arguments. "Even the parents don't think anything is going on here. They were in love, they ran off. It's like Romeo and Juliet or something. Can we please get out of here?"

John started up the truck. "I think you should interview her. Tell her your cat is missing. She'll buy right into that."

"Dad. Come on. Cats? Isn't this a little beneath us."

Alec's arm came through the window just then, an orange soda dropped into Sam's lab. "I don't know, Sam. I was always kind of fond of cats."

* * *

The old lady smelled funny, and couldn't really see or hear anything, so while Sam talked quite loudly and quite convincingly about the poor missing Fluffy, Alec wandered around the single story home. She had knickknacks stacked on top of knickknacks and an entire room devoted to a stuffed animal collection. Alec wound up one cat that opened its mouth and batted at a ball of string glued to its paw with the jerky movements of toys that run on rusty gears and love alone. The fur was matted down and it was old enough that she probably got it as a child.

More than a little creeped out by it all, he left the toy with its futile struggle and went out the backdoor into the yard. There are little grave markers put up for her four cats. Someone must have dug the holes and helped her. He crouched in front of them and traced his fingers over the letters. Whiskers, Poppy, Kitty and Mittens.

"Quaint," he muttered. He was glad Max hadn't paid homage to shared DNA when she named him.

"Hey, Alec?" Sam called from within the house.

"Out here."

Sam closed the screen door softly behind him, so different from Alec's careless slam.

He said, "Well, she says they weren't killed by any predators she knows of."

"She can't even see."

"Yeah, I know. Dad still out scouting the neighborhood?" Sam crouched down next to him and looked at the markers.

Alec nodded and stood up to move to the end of the yard. Her house bordered a grove of trees, a small forest really, and beyond that doubtless somewhere was farm land.

Alec strained his senses and tried to get a feel for anything that might live in the woods.

"She offered to bury Fluffy here, when we find her."

"Oh good, a nice home for your imaginary pet."

"Dad's going to make us dig these up, you know."

Alec turned around to look at Sam. "Well, best get it over with now."

Sam looked up at him sharply. "The old lady's still awake inside. We can't do this now."

"Sam. She's deaf. And blind. Besides, they can be more than a foot down. Use a spade. It's just like gardening."

Sam grumbled, but found the gardening tools and cut easily through the earth, still soft from the burial. "Aren't you going to help?"

"Nah. I think you've got it covered." Alec turned back to the woods, and couldn't help but think that something was different.

"Did you see anything out there?" he asked.

"You're the one with the genetic enhancements. You tell me."

Sam grunted as the spade hit pay dirt in the form of a shoebox.

"Get over here. It was probably just a bird or something."

* * *

"What do you think? Coyote?" Alec watched as Sam poked at Mittens with the spade. 

"Not with that sort of blunt trauma. Looks like whatever it was had hooves."

"Killer cows? That'd be kind of cool." Alec pulled his shirt up over his nose to block the smell.

Sam gave him a look.

"I'm still not used to the whole grave robbery thing," he defended. "Besides, genetic enhancements, remember?"

"Alright well, let's take a picture and bury it again."

"Don't you want to, like, salt and burn it or something? Isn't that what we do?"

Sam closed the box and put it back in the shallow grave. "I don't think a ghost cat kidnapped those teenagers."

"Just seems kind of like a let down, you know? Dig up a body, but no fire?"

"There's something wrong with you, man."

* * *

John was waiting for them at the truck, still parked outside the old woman's house. They cut through the yard to get there, jumping over the low fence boxing in the back yard and slipping between the houses instead of returning through the house and having to deal with the old lady again. Even Alec's sweet tooth couldn't handle more stale candy and sugary lemonade. 

"Did you get anything?" John asked.

"Yeah," Sam said and held out the cell phone so John could look at the image there. "Looks like it's not your natural predator after all."

John raised an eyebrow at the concession but didn't say anything.

"Hey, can we get something to eat?" Alec asked, reaching in the truck to grab his half eaten bag of Funyuns.

"Yeah," John said, and handed the phone back to Sam. "And a room. Looks like we'll be staying a while."

"Why?" Sam asked. "What did you find?"

"Hoof prints. Out in the woods."

"What's so special about that?"

"It's walking upright."

* * *

They ordered some burgers and camped out in the hotel room. The walls were painted salmon pink and there was a picture of a teepee hung between the beds. Alec sat cross legged on one of the beds and stared at it while he ate, giving only half an ear to John and Sam. 

"Really, dad, a satyr?" Sam was saying.

"Yes."

"Like half goat, half man, right out of Greek mythology? That's a little unlikely for Ravenna, Nebraska, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but a Goatman isn't."

Alec thought about reruns he'd seen of Saturday Night Live and chuckled around a mouth full of fries. They ignored him.

"A Goatman."

"They've been spotted all over the country. More often before the Pulse, and usually in Maryland, but also Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas. Young lovers go missing, pets turn up dead. The signs match."

"Except for the lights flickering."

"I went out to the power station. I think it's pretty clear why the lights are flickering. And it didn't start after Caitlin and Scott disappeared. It's been going on since the EMP shorted everything out. The townspeople have just been jumping at shadows."

"So this is a mythical creature? That turns up and eats cats and hunts for kids making out?"

John cleared his throat, and Alec turned to watch him while he slurped some soda up his straw. John had a shifty look in his eyes, and Alec could feel the elephant in the room.

"Not exactly mythical," he said. He cleared his throat again. "All you need to know is that normal shot gun rounds will kill it. We'll run surveillance on the woods, see if we can track it and find those kids. After we take it down, we'll do a salt and burn, just to be safe. Then we'll head back home."

Alec and John were still staring at each other. Alec felt like he was back in that hotel room after Stanford, being told to leave all over again. Dean could stay, but the rest of the package would have to go.

* * *

John cleaned his shotgun and packed a bag with shells and extra guns and holy water and salt and exorcism books just in case. He felt he could never be too prepared. This seemed like a Goatman, but if there was a spirit or a demon, or hell, elves or some shit, he needed to be prepared. 

Alec was still watching him from across the room. He'd moved from the bed to the window, and was sitting on the radiator. Sam was packing his own bag and reading John's literature on Goatmen. When had he gotten his hands on that? John opened his mouth to demand his papers back, but Sam beat him to it.

Sam said, "It says here that Goatmen were the product of some government experiment gone wrong."

Alec said, "Oh really. Government experiments gone wrong. Tell me where I've heard that one before." His tone was dry and brittle. John didn't like it.

John said, "Dean," putting all the paternal air of admonishment into his tone that he could.

Alec said, "X5-494, government experiment, at your service."

John struggled with his frustration. "Don't do this, son."

"Do what?" Sam asked. "He's got a point. Besides, we don't even know if it did it. Maybe those kids did just run off, and the Goatman happens to be here."

"This isn't a coincidence, Sam," John reached over and grabbed the papers away. "And we're not doing this. Get out to the truck."

* * *

Alec volunteered to put his altered genetics to use and stake out the area on foot while Sam and John waited in the truck and kept an eye on the street. 

Sam said, "You're trying to make him something he's not. You won't even acknowledge what he is."

John said, "You don't know what you're talking about."

Sam turned away and spoke to the window. "I'm glad I'm going to college."

John shook his head ruefully. He didn't want to poke that bee's nest with a ten foot pole. "Get your focus back on the job."

* * *

Alec went back to the woods where he had thought he'd seen movement before and climbed a tree to give himself a good vantage point. He figured anything with hooves probably wasn't camping out in the trees anyway. He felt a little bit like bait on the ground, what with all the cats dead. And even if this was just a Nomalie like he thought, he'd had encounters with those that weren't too favorable either. He thought briefly about another cat, a woman black as night and missing a white barcode, left dead in a sewer, and pried his thoughts back to the present. 

It was hours before anything moved besides a squirrel or a bird. And when it did he roused himself from his perch to peer into the darkness. It moved awkwardly through the brush, like the bone structure for its bottom half didn't quite match the top. It had a squirrel clutched in one hand and Alec thought again about the woman in the sewer, about eating rats to survive. It moved away from his position and he slipped to the ground silently and crouched down so he could follow it without being seen.

He followed far enough that he caught the scent of decaying flesh and knew that he could find his way back again easily. He turned to head back to the truck. John would be expecting a report.

* * *

"I want you to go to college," John said, after hours of no life outside their truck and no conversation in it. 

Sam said, "I thought I was focusing on the job."

John sighed, and they were both glad when the tap on the window came. Sam rolled it down so Alec could reach inside and grab some coffee.

"I found him," he said. "He's got a collection."

"Did you find the teenagers?"

"I didn't check. I came here first."

"They could still be alive."

"Everything back there is dead. I'm sure of it."

John opened his door and stepped out, shotgun in hand.

He said, "Let's go take care of it, then."

* * *

This time, Alec wove a more careful path through the woods, one he was sure John and Sam would be able to follow easily and silently without his superior night vision. They reached the point where Alec had smelled the Goatman's lair and stopped. Alec waved a hand forward and John crept in the direction he pointed. Sam and Alec sat back under some heavier brush for cover and watched as he jumped into a gully. They listened for him once he'd gone out of sight. 

It was only a few minutes before John reappeared.

"They're in there," he whispered after he'd joined them. "Dead for several days now. No sign of the Goatman."

"He'll be back," Alec said.

"But if he's gone hunting, shouldn't we go stop him?" Sam asked.

"It's almost morning," John said. "There's no one out right now. He's going to have to come home and wait out the day. Take the shot when you get one."

* * *

The sun was only a couple hours from breaching the horizon by the time it stumbled back into view. And this time Alec got a good look at it. 

He broke cover and was standing in the open without even thinking.

"What series are you?" Alec said and moved towards it.

"Um, Alec, maybe you should back away." Sam was standing behind John, both of them having followed him out in a scrambled once they'd seen him move. He held his rifle cocked but pointed at the ground.

"I think I've seen one of these before," Alec said. "When Max staged her big break out. Some sort of Nomalie or something. Maybe a lower X-series."

"Dean," John barked and leveled his shot gun at the figure in the trees. "You're unarmed. Get back."

"No," he said. "It's just a Nomalie. Just like that time when you thought we were hunting a Wendigo."

"It killed those kids. It's not a Nomalie. It's a Goatman."

"Aren't those pretty much the same thing?" Alec snapped.

"Dean, fall back! Now!"

"No," he said, and turned just in time to see it lunge for him.

* * *

Later, Sam's head was reeling from Alec's blur and his father's quick finger on the trigger. The Goatman, or Nomalie, or whatever it was, lay dead in front of them. Alec stood a ways off in the woods and refused to look back at them. 

John said, "Go get the salt, Sam," and knelt down beside it to turn it over.

Alec said, "I'll do it," and walked off.

Sam looked down at the twisted features, at the furry legs and hoofed feet, at the fingers curled into claws and stained with blood.

He said, "So? What is it?"

"It doesn't matter, Sam. It was killing. It had to be stopped."

Alec's hand came between them, holding the salt canister. "I've killed. Should I be stopped?"

John took the salt and started shaking it out over the body. "You're not a monster."

"Yeah? I'm not human either. I was made in a lab, just like him."

"You weren't made in a lab," John said.

"They messed around enough with my DNA that it doesn't make any difference." Alec's voice was quiet, but Sam could hear how angry he was.

"You're not like him," John said.

Alec struck a match and dropped it. They all stood back to watch it burn.

* * *

They went back to the hotel room to pack up and catch a little sleep before the sun made its appearance. Alec sat perched on the back gate of the truck and stared at the place where the sun would eventually rise. He heard the hotel door open and close and didn't have to turn to see John approaching him slowly. 

"I've been a little hard on you lately," he said.

Alec kept silent.

"I saw you twice before," he said. "One time, you were a blip on an ultrasound, and the doctor had to tell me what I was looking at. The second time, they bundled you away before I could even get a good look at you, and they never let us hold your body. Now I know why."

"You don't even ask me what happened."

"Would you tell me? You told Sam some story that's got him scared to ask more. You've got your mother looking over her shoulder. I thought you would want normal."

"Normal's a little different for me."

"For all of us," John said.

They let the silence grow again, and eventually John walked away. Alec didn't know what to say to bring him back. He wasn't sure he should.

The sun was just peaking over the horizon when Alec's phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen but no number was listed. When he picked it up all he heard were the soft sounds of a piano. He disconnected the call and slid it back into his pocket.

Lydecker had been right. Someone had found him after all.


	7. Adoptation

The phone rang twice more on the way home to Kansas. Both times Alec listened to the familiar song before hanging up. After the third call, he gripped the phone in his hand and refused to meet Sam's confused gaze.

"It's just Joshua," he said. "Playing around."

"Who's Joshua?"

Alec shrugged. "An old roommate."

"From camp?"

Alec tensed up. "Yeah, from camp."

Sam let it drop.

* * *

Back in Kansas, Mary hugged Sam and John on the way through the door, and Alec managed to avoid it because he was carrying too many bags. He tried not to notice the disappointed look in her eyes when he went upstairs to drop off the stuff.

He was pulling the guns out to clean them when his phone rang again. He let it ring; he could hear the music in his head anyway. No need for another reminder.

Once the guns were out, he dumped the rest of the stuff and sorted through it, then started to repack. It was time to get out of Kansas before the shit really hit the fan.

The phone rang again, and then again.

John appeared at the door to his room.

"It's just going to keep ringing," he said.

"What?"

"It's Max, right? On the way back to Kansas the first time, you and Sam were out and Max just kept calling until I answered."

"You talked to Max?"

"She was trying to protect you. You should just answer it already."

Alec opened the phone and put it to his ear as he watched John disappear. It wasn't Max. He wished it was Max.

* * *

He took the Impala. He could feel bad about that later, he thought, or he could bring it back, someday. Maybe. Someday when he wasn't Alec anymore, when he was ready to just be Dean.

* * *

In Seattle, he ditched the car on the outskirts and covered it up. He figured John had left enough mojo on it that no one would get near it anyway, but the branches made him feel better.

In Terminal City, Max gave him a look that said, _Haven't we done this already?_ But she let him crash and didn't say anything out loud besides to offer him some food. She put him up on a couch in her tiny apartment, sans Cindy because Terminal City would harsh her groove, and when Max settled into the few hours of sleep her shark DNA still required, he slipped out the window.

A while later he was standing at the gate to a mansion he'd once dreamed could have been his reality, instead of the barcode on his neck. He let the security cameras get a good look at him, then vaulted over and blurred into the house. It seemed so familiar, but this time there wasn't Rachel on the staircase, or a fake Rachel waiting upstairs. There weren't even security guards there for him to take out. Upstairs, he found the piano, and the room was empty, as well. He sat down at the piano in the dark, and brushed his fingers over the keys, imagined her fingers there, imagined her there, smiling at him.

The lights came up in the room, and he looked up quickly enough to see it wasn't Robert Berrisford before everything went black.

* * *

His head hurt, and he was an utter fool. Those were the first two things. The third was that he recognized the cage, and the forth was that he was so so tired.

"X5-494. Nice of you to join us."

"Thanks," he muttered, sitting up slowly and hoping everything would stop spinning. "I always appreciate it when you invite me over, Ames."

White chuckled. "You are the invitation, _Dean_." He smiled, and Alec could have sworn that his eyes flashed yellow.

* * *

John was pissed when he saw the car was gone, and even more pissed when Dean was gone, too. He almost wished someone had just stolen it and he could hunt their asses down and take care of that shit. But instead, his wayward lost-and-found-again elder son had taken it, which, yeah, he had offered it, but this was different, and now he'd have to chase after him and he really wasn't a fan of Seattle on a good day.

Sam found him in the garage and handed him a phone, stood in the place where the car had been, shrugged a little, and went back inside.

He put the phone up to his ear and he was thinking it would maybe be Max, maybe even be Dean, but it wasn't.

"John? I'm sorry about this."

"Where is he, Don?"

"There are things going on here—things I think you know more about than I do."

"You and your fucking good will mission. Where is Dean, you son-of-a-bitch?"

"X5-494 is exactly where you think he'll be, John. But you have other things to worry about. Stay away. Manticore with take care of Manticore, and you take care of Sam."

"It's too late for that. I think you know that. I think you knew that the first time you fucked with my family."

Lydecker was silent for a long time.

"I'll call you when you're close."

The line went dead and John hurled the phone at the garage wall as hard as he could.

* * *

"I heard you got your asses kicked at Jam Pony," Alec said, pulling himself up into a crouch—as high as he could get in Ames's fun little metal box. He gripped the bars and braced himself against the sway. "Sorry I missed it."

White walked up to the cage, suspended like a chandelier in the Berrisford lobby, and stared in at him like an insect, like a thing. White was so good at that, and so close, Alec was absolutely sure that his eyes were yellow.

"Is that so? I thought you were having a good time hanging out with mommy and daddy. Or don't they want you there? Not human enough for them? Not Dean enough?"

Alec stared into those eyes, those ugly yellow eyes, and knew it wasn't White he was talking to. He felt a little bad about that, because at least Ames he knew how to deal with.

"You should lay off the hooch man, jaundice is a killer."

* * *

"You're not coming."

"Like hell I'm not!" Sam said, and he was up in John's face like had never happened before. There had been angry, and snide, and even downright disobedient, but this was righteous fury like he should have expected from his own flesh and blood. He should have seen this coming.

"It's not safe," he said, teeth clenched and voice guttural. "You need to stay out of it, Sam. You need to stay home with your mother."

Sam's jaw was a rock, and John suddenly wondered when Sam had gotten so tall.

"Alec is in trouble," he said. "I need to be there for my brother."

* * *

Lydecker showed up at her place while Max was stripping blankets off the couch, complaining about ungrateful house guests.

"Do you know where he went?" he asked.

"Do I care?" she snapped back.

"John is on his way," he said. "I think White has him."

Max dropped the blankets and sighed, sitting down in a heap on the couch. "He got a phone call, but it was only music... Not Berrisford again?"

She stood up, grabbed her coat, and was out the door calling back, "That boy is so damn predictable. Come on, I know where he went."

* * *

John said goodbye to Mary, pulled her into a tight hug and whispered promises in her ear. She cried on to his shoulder, and he whispered all the assurances he could think of that weren't lies. There weren't many.

When he pulled away, she grabbed his arm. "Wait," she said. "I have something you might need."

He stood in the kitchen, trying not to tick precious seconds off his head. When she came back, she handed him a gun case.

Inside, he recognized it as another one of those things that supposedly didn't exist.

"How…?"

"Just trust me," she said. "I love you."

* * *

The mansion was dark, but they could still tell it was occupied. White was clearly there, and not even bothering to keep a low profile.

"Should we wait for John?" Max asked. "He doesn't even have much back up. I could take him."

Lydecker shot her a look, and opened his mouth to tell what he now suspected, and why they needed to wait for John, but the manor door opened up just then and the thing that came out was White, but it wasn't. Max could tell from beyond the gate, just like Don had been able to tell weeks ago, when he ran into the thing before making his way out to Kansas.

"I'll do you a favor, little girl," it yelled. "Get me Sam Winchester and you'll never have to worry about this meat suit again."

* * *

"Where's Mr. Berrisford?" Alec asked at some point, sitting in his cage, bored despite the whole life-and-death situation thing.

"I sent him away," it responded, facing away from him and watching the door. Just waiting, and not impatiently. It was unnerving. "Aren't you glad?"

"Why would I be glad? Mr. Berrisford was good to me, mostly." And he had been. He'd trusted him in his home, with his daughter. Until Alec had screwed things up there'd been nothing there to make him wish the man hurt or gone, as he likely was now.

"Even after he tried to have you killed?"

Alec said nothing. He always ended up regretting his heart-to-hearts with mad men. And he never learned.

"What's the matter? You think you deserved it? You think you messed up that family and you'll mess this one up, too? Well guess what. This family was already messed up, from crazy deal-making parents to inhuman kids." White looked up at the cage for this first time since Alec started their conversation. He was smiling. "I liked Rachel, Dean. Don't think I'm not mad at you for taking her out of the picture. But imagine my surprise when I come looking for her, and I find out all about little Sammy instead." His grin got even bigger. "I knew you'd make it up to me somehow."

* * *

John answered the phone while sitting at a checkpoint, waiting to get into Seattle, Sam a seething mess beside him.

"Where?" John said.

Sam couldn't hear the other end of the conversation, couldn't hear much because of the worry buzzing in his ears.

"You'd better be telling the truth, or I will _hunt you_."

John hit the gas and they blew past the others waiting and down into the belly of the beast. No one even bothered to give chase.

They found Max waiting for them, with Lydecker, and Logan, and Joshua, and some others John didn't recognize, but knew would all lay it on the line for his son. But Max's eyes were sad, and most of them look spooked.

"It's White," she said.

"Where's Alec?" Sam asked.

"With White, but he's not…right."

"What do you mean?"

Max shrugged, and there was a creak of worn leather and the world crashing down on his ears.

"White is different now. He looks like a nomalie." Sam looked lost, confused, and Max waved her hand vaguely. "He has yellow eyes."

John wished it were a Manticore problem. He really did.

* * *

The door slammed shut behind them, and only John and Sam were left standing on the warehouse floor, looking up at Alec in his cage and White waiting for them. He could hear Max and the others banging on the door, and then silence. Max would work out a plan.

"She's crafty, that one," White said. "I wish she were one of mine. But we probably don't have much time."

"Alec!" Sam yelled, and ran towards the cage, only to find himself flying through the air, right into White's arms.

"Sammy," he said, "you're all grown up. My how you've changed."

"Let him go!" John screamed, leveling the gun towards them, the one his wife had pulled from nowhere, no way, no how, but unable to get a shot past Sam.

White held the knife against Sam's cheek, then slid it down slowly, breaking the skin and letting the blood well against the blade, before putting it up to his mouth so he could lick at it. He smiled. "Almost ripe, Sammy. You taste like me."

"What the hell are you talking about?" John asked, shooting a glance up at Alec, suspended above them and trapped, shooting a glance for anyone, anything, that could help.

"You married into this," White said, "and after all this time, you still don't really know what you're messing with." He caressed Sam's cheek.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Ask Mary, John. Go home and ask your wife about that pretty little gun, and about what she did. Ask her what she did to Sam."

He leaned in towards Sam's ear, and Alec could hear him whisper "See you soon."

John leveled the colt, but White's head was thrown back and smoke poured out of him, thick and stifling, then rushing up and out of the warehouse. Alec could swear he heard it laughing. Sam stumbled away, holding a hand to his bleeding cheek.

Sam's face, when Alec looked down at him, was stricken.

* * *

Sam climbed up and got Alec out of the cage. He stood up and every bone in his spine popped. He smiled a little at Sam, and their eyes never met.

They got back down together, and John was on the phone. Sam started forward, but Alec grabbed his arm and held him back.

Alec could hear Mary's voice on the other end of the line. She was quiet, but he was better.

John was saying, "What did you do?"

She was replying, "I saved your life, and mine, and together we can save Sam. Come home and we can talk about it. It's safe here."

"_What did you do_?"

Mary talked about deals and kisses and demons and babies and blood. She talked about protection spells and charms and magic guns.

Alec kept his hand on Sam's arm and thought about Rachel and her father and didn't repeat any of it. Too many families were going to end up ruined because of this. The more time they had, the better.

* * *

Max gave Alec a hug and told him to stop being so stupid, that next time he showed up in Seattle she was going to put him in a cage herself until his family came to collect him.

Lydecker held his hand out for John to shake, but John walked away, got in his truck, and silently fumed the whole way back to the car.

Sam and Alec didn't say anything until they were done pulling the branches off the Impala, John still sitting in the truck, watching them in the rear view mirror and waiting, gun gripped tightly in his right hand.

When they got into the car and Alec turned the engine over, even that didn't settle the hairs on the back of his neck. Sam clenched and unclenched his hands beside him, and waited even after John started pulling away.

He finally said, "I'm not human."

Alec shrugged. "Join the club."


End file.
